Filmmaker's eye-opening presentation has kids reading labels

By Kate Adams
BayToday.ca
Thursday, May 05, 2011

Nipissing-Parry Sound Catholic District School Board
News Release

Andrew Nisker wants students to change the way they clean and smell. The award-winning filmmaker stood in front of the entire St. Joseph-Scollard Hall student body and staff and revealed toxicity levels in their favourite cosmetic and household cleaning products. The writer and producer of Chemerical, a documentary that follows an average family's switch to "green" products once they learn the danger of contents in popular brands, was on hand for the school’s Enviro-Insights Film Festival last week.

Students brought their favourite lipsticks and body sprays to Nisker’s presentation and watched in disbelief as he revealed their favourite products' poor ratings in a database by the Environmental Working Group, Skin Deep. Products are given an ingredient hazard score, from 1-10, which reflects known and suspected hazards of ingredients.

"The quality of the air in your home is far worse than the quality of the air outside, and that all comes down to the chemicals in everything we use to clean ourselves and our home," he said. "We are a generation that needs to smell like strawberries and vanilla because we are afraid of smelling like human beings."

Nisker urged the audience to start buying natural products or learn to make their own. He encouraged students to report their switch to natural products on his "toxic products removed" counter at Chemicalnation.com Take Action Tools. "What are some of the things we can start doing today," one student asked. "You have to stop buying bottled water. You live in a city surrounded by beautiful lakes. Your tap water is gold, drink it" he said.

Indie doc-maker and eco-activist Andrew Nisker is attempting to rid theworld of harmful chemicals and needless waste one film at a time - nodistributor required.

We caught up with filmmaker Andrew Nisker just days after his returnfrom Arkansas, where he was invited by Walmart headquarters to screenand discuss his latest doc, Chemerical.

In Super Size Me-esque form, Chemerical follows a family's three-monthjourney to live without chemical-based household and personal care items.It is the sequel to Nisker's first eco-reality doc, Garbage (2003), whichtrails a family's three-month journey to entirely rid their home of waste.

"The message is that the revolution starts at home," says the former SexConfessions director, who earned his chops in directing lifestyle and docTV for CBC, CTV, Chum Television and Global over the past 20 years.

Film Review: Chemerical

Synergy, The magazine Dedicated to Mindful Living

Dirk Becker, Monday, May 10, 2010

Chemerical was one of the most interesting documentaries I have seen in a long time. What made this film so powerful, was the poignancy of the pain that this family suffered from being confronted with the reality and addiction to having so many toxic cleaners in their home.

Chemerical is a Canadian documentary that offers a window through which one can voyeuristically witness people’s unconscious, unwitting choices and the many corporatist chemicals that they spray and smear about their homes and bodies.